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Digging deep for ways to curb ammonia emissions


September 28, 2010  by USDA-ARS

manureinjectionSeptember 28, 2010,
Kimberly, ID – Dairy farmers can greatly reduce ammonia emissions from their
production facilities by injecting liquid manure into crop fields below the
soil surface, according to research by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA).
September 28, 2010,
Kimberly, ID – Dairy farmers can greatly reduce ammonia emissions from their
production facilities by injecting liquid manure into crop fields below the
soil surface, according to research by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA)
.

These findings, which
resulted from a study conducted by soil scientist April Leytem
and agricultural engineer David
Bjorneberg with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service
(ARS)
, could help Idaho dairy farmers increase nitrogen capture in the soil and
protect air quality from agricultural ammonia emissions.

manureinjection  
   

The scientists work at
the ARS Northwest
Irrigation and Soils Research Laboratory
in Kimberly, Id, and
conducted their study on four dairy farms in Idaho, a state where the number of
milk cows has increased 88 percent in the last decade. They applied liquid
dairy manure stored in containment lagoons either by surface broadcasting,
using a rolling tine aerator to incorporate manure into the top four inches of
the soil surface, or injecting the manure 12 inches below the soil surface.

Over the three-day study
period, the greatest concentration of emissions was recorded during the 48
hours immediately following the manure applications, with the majority of
emissions occurring within 24 hours. Surface broadcasts resulted in average
ammonia concentrations of 0.17 milligrams of nitrogen per cubic meter, and
shallow incorporation resulted in average ammonia emission rates of 0.16
milligrams of nitrogen per cubic meter. Fields where manure had been amended
using subsurface injection had average ammonia concentrations of 0.06
milligrams of nitrogen per cubic meter – 65 percent lower than emission rates
resulting from soil amendments via shallow incorporation or surface broadcast.

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Leytem and Bjorneberg
concluded that dairy farmers who use dairy manure to amend soils could best
reduce ammonia emissions by using subsurface injection, and that immediately
incorporating manure deep into the soils during its application can limit
losses of manure nitrogen from ammonia volatilization.

Results from this research
were published in The Professional Animal Scientist.

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